


That One Time Cas Was an Accountant and Ben Became an Angel of the Lord

by MushroomDoggo



Category: Parks and Recreation, Supernatural
Genre: Comedy, Crossover, Gen, SPN - Freeform, bad language, parks and supernatural, slight AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-06
Updated: 2015-01-29
Packaged: 2018-02-28 09:45:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2727728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MushroomDoggo/pseuds/MushroomDoggo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Team Free Will arrives in a small town to solve the case of a missing reaper, two very different casts meet and collide... also, someone put Cas' grace in Ben and now they have to switch places. It's gonna take some time to fix a mess this big.</p><p>Slight AU where Nick Newport Senior dies at a different point in the show... but who actually cares about him, to be honest?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Department of Parks and Recreation

This is the story of how two worlds-- two very different and yet very similar worlds-- came together.

It was messy, and it was strange, but it was worth it. It was so worth it…

It started with a case no one really cared about and a death that everyone had expected.

So…

Here we go, I guess.

~~~~~

“Guys!” came a voice from down the hall, echoing around the corner.

April moaned softly, jostled out of the peaceful nap she had been taking on her desk, a dab of saliva at the corner of her mouth. 

“Guys! Guys!” the voice kept repeating, panting hard and growing slowly louder.

Ron looked up from the stick he was whittling. He took enough stock in his surroundings to know he didn’t want to be a part of them, then closed the door to his office with the remote on his desk.

“Guys! Why is no one answering?” she kept yelling.

“Right here, boss!” Andy appeared, skidding around a corner into the central room of the office. 

“Honey?” Ben poked his head out of his own office.

Donna and Tom were both in the same room, but neither thought it worth it to call back to their boss, just waited for her to arrive and start shouting about something they could not care less about.

Leslie finally stumbled into the room, seeing only Andy and Ben standing before her. Not that that would ever discourage her. “Hey!”

She grinned obnoxiously large, trying to catch her breath as she pulled the blond hair out of her face.

“Hey…” Ben trailed off, noticing the excitement in his wife’s face. “What’s going on?”

“Oh! Right! I have news!” Leslie suddenly remembered. She had a tendency to get lost in her own adrenaline.

“Good news or bad news?” Andy asked. “Wait, get we get the good news first? Wait, can we get the bad news first? WAIT-- can you do both at the same time?” he asked, a smile spreading across his face as he imagined the sight.

Donna snorted in laughter. “I don’t think you want Leslie to talk anymore than she has to…”

“Okay!” Leslie wasn’t even phased. “So, listen: Nick Newport Senior--”

“Ugh!” Tom exclaimed. “That guy from Sweetums? I hope he dies soon! I hope he dies so I can have his hot wife…” He didn’t even look up from his phone, just kept texting or tweeting or updating or whatever it was he did now.

“You’re in luck! He died late last night,” Leslie explained. She then paused, realizing how horrible the phrase was. “Wait… no, that wasn’t how I wanted to say that…”

“Ah!” Tom dropped his phone, putting his hands on his temples. “I didn’t mean it! Oh god… I’m a witch!”

“You’re not a witch, Tom…” Leslie muttered. “Anyway, Nick Newport Senior… passed away--” she said firmly, choosing her words carefully “At four o’clock last night. Wait-- this morning?”

She paused to consider this. 

Ben cleared his throat to bring her back to Earth.

Leslie shook her head a bit as she snapped back to reality. “Anyway! His funeral is tomorrow, and I wanted to give a… you know, a heartfelt speech about how he shaped the community and stuff… then I could run for office again!”

The company groaned collectively, except for Ben.

“Uh…” he muttered, stepping closer to Leslie. “Do you really think that’s a good idea? We’ve been burned on this so many times…”

Leslie nodded. “Uh-huh! Look, even if I don’t head right back out, sweet-talking that dead guy is gonna buy me some major points! Right?”

It was this moment that Ron decided to poke his head out of the door. “Who died?”

“Nick Newport Senior!” Leslie told him. “Isn’t that great?”

A voice near the door cleared its throat. Everyone in the room whirled to face it.

“Councilman Howser…” Leslie murmured, her voice husky with embarrassment. 

“Miss Knope…” the Councilman replied. He gazed about the room, dryly amused by the rag-tag crew thrown about. “You have visitors.”

“Ooh! Ooh!” Andy raised his hand like he was in school. “Is it Roy Hibbert? I heard Tom owes him money, and I want him to sign my jersey, so--”

“No.” The Councilman stepped to the side, clearing the way for three rather intimidating men to come into the room. “Miss Knope, these are agents Lensherr, Raven and Xavier.”

“Hey, aren’t those some of the X-Men?” Andy asked.

The three men froze just inside. The first man, a very tall one with strangely long hair, immediately grimaced, his face just falling into that shape as though it had formed it a hundred times before. The second, one of middle height with shorter, well-styled light-brown hair, shook his head as hard as he could. The third, a much shorter man with an outrageously square chin and a… familiar outfit, to say the least, nodded.

“Yes. I don’t think you were supposed to know that, though…” he muttered in an obscenely deep voice.

The Councilman cleared his throat, then excused himself.

Andy gasped. “Are those your code names, or are you really the X-Men?”

The tallest man cleared his throat. “Please try to ignore that, sir. I’m Sam. This is Dean--” he pointed to the second man “and Steve.” He nodded his head at the short man.

“Hello! I’m Leslie Knope!” Leslie stepped forward, holding her hand out to be shook. All three men went for it at once, then backed off. 

After a few more attempts, Sam shook Leslie’s hand. “Pleasure. As you may have guessed, we’re with the FBI, we just have a few questions for you.”

“Oh!” Leslie looked shocked. “Oh… s-sure! Just… come into my office, please?”

Dean shook his head. “It’s no big deal, ma‘am. We just need to know if any of you had a connection with Nick Newport Senior.”

“Well…” Leslie trailed off, fiddling with her hands. Interagoations like this made her nervous. “We… we all did. He owned Sweetums, you know? We had to deal with him and his employees on a regular basis. But… I’m sorry, I don’t know what you want me to say… what exactly is this about?”

“So you’re saying you know nothing about his murder?” Steve asked, his voice deep and menacing.

April snorted awake. “Who said ‘murder?’” she asked. You could hear in her voice that she had not been truly asleep, just faking it until she found the conversation interesting.

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose and grabbed Steve’s shoulder, turning him to face the other way where they whispered to each other.

“Excuse my partners,” Dean said, forcing a chuckle, “They have some… some long-standing issues… um, any chance you got a bathroom around here?”

“Tom?” Leslie called.

Tom had been sitting in a stunned silence since the word ‘murder’ had come up.

“Tom?” Leslie repeated.

He shook himself out of his daze. “Huh?”

“Could you show agent Dean Raven, here, to the men’s room?” Leslie asked firmly, nodding to Dean as she said his name.

Dean chuckled nervously. 

“Tom.” 

“Sure…” Tom stood up, leaving his phone on the desk and walking stiffly to Dean’s side. “Um… right this way, sir…”

Dean shook his head. “No need to be nervous, sir. I’m a person just like you.”

“Uh-huh…” Tom muttered, leading the way down the hall.

As soon as the two of them were gone, Sam and Steve turned back to face us.

“I… I apologize for my sudden outburst…” Steve told us all. 

Ben was staring oddly at him, probably wondering what the strange man was doing dressed exactly like him. They also had a similar haircut. And a similar, puppy-like stare of confusion.

Steve stared back at him, even taking a few steps toward him. Once they were close enough to be in private conversation, Steve poked his cheek with one finger.

Ben stood there and took it, dealing with people like this on a daily basis had hardened him to the weirdness. 

“Who are you?” Steve asked softly, his gravelly voice muddling his words.

“Who are you? Ben asked, his voice almost comedically high in comparison.

“I’m Cas-- I mean, I’m Steve. I’m an… employee. Of the Federal Government.”

Andy gasped again. “So they are code names!” he exclaimed. “You’re a spy!”

Leslie scoffed “Andy, don’t be ridiculous.”

Steve opened his mouth to respond, but Sam shook his head slightly and made him close it. 

Sam cleared his throat, stepping into the spotlight. “Has anything… strange been going on around here? Any electricity problems… lighting, heating…” Sam waved his hand, implying ‘et cetera.’

“U-um…” Leslie stuttered. “Uh…” she froze, just staring into Sam’s eyes, looking absolutely terrified.

Ron and Ben saw her distress, coming to either side of her to take over.

“Everything’s been fine around here. Really, nothing… weird…” Ben trailed off. “Have I seen you somewhere before?”

Sam squinted back at Ben. “Uh…”

“‘Uh’ never got anyone anywhere, son. Now, finish your business and get out,” Ron ordered. Then, softer, “I am not a fan of the government, and I will forcibly remove you if need be.”

“Don’t you… work for the government?” Sam asked, clearly very confused.

Leslie snapped out of her panic trance. “It’s fine! We’re all fine here. Would you like some cookies before Ron loses it?”

“Mm!” the third agent, Dean, exclaimed from the hall, evidently back from his visit to the restroom. “I’ll take some of those!”

Tom followed slowly behind him, his shoulders hunched slightly. He was clearly having a terrible day for reasons unknown.

“Great! Full disclosure-- I made them for a weird friend of mine, and they’re vegan,” Leslie explained quickly. She was in full panic mode.

“Honey?” Ben murmured, resting gentle hands on each of her shoulders. “Why don’t we let the large, burly, government agents leave?”

Dean made a disgusted face, probably because of the vegan cookies.

Sam nodded. “Yeah. We should get going.”

Steve leafed through a binder.

“Steve?” Sam tried to get his attention. “Steve.”

He leafed through a couple more binders.

The whole room was silent, spellbound by the exceedingly and increasingly odd agents. 

Sam sighed, walking over to his partner and grabbing shoulder, steering him out the door. “Thank you for your time!” he called over his shoulder.

Dean, who had somehow grabbed a cookie without anyone noticing, smiled in agreement. He grabbed a few more off the plate, shoving them deep into his pockets as he stalked out. As he left, he waved jauntily, smiling genuinely at the Parks and Recreation employees as as he disappeared around a corner.

The room let out a collective sigh of relief.

Andy nodded slowly, squinting at the place where Dean had disappeared. “They’re totally spies.”


	2. The Fourth Floor and JJ's Diner

As a struggled to swallow the dry lumps of weirdly delicious vegan cookie, I thought about what Tom had told me.

On the walk to the restroom, I had noticed he didn’t seem quite happy. Seeing him as the odd one out of the group, I figured he might have something to do with this… exceedingly bizarre case.

All I got out of his was that he felt strangely responsible for the death of Nick Newport, even though he hated the guy.

That made sense. From what research Sam had related to me, he was a disgusting, manipulative old man. He had caused a lot of personal grief for the Parks and Recreation Department (who had numerous insane headlines over the years). 

I jogged down the hall to catch up with Sam and Cas. “Well?” I asked.

Sam shrugged. “‘Well,’ what?”

“Did you get anything out of them?” I asked. I looked to Cas, as well, letting him know that he was able to answer the question.

Sam frowned slightly, shaking his head. “No. Just that one guy…”

“Huh?”

“Ben,” Cas explained. “His name was Ben. I, too, got a strange feeling from him.”

“Yeah. He said he recognized me. I’ve never seen him before in my life! Just a… I don’t, a weird vibe or something…” Sam waved it off. “Other than that, they’re clean. You?”

I shrugged. “Well, Tom’s acting suspicious, but not in any way that helps,” I explained, putting on a face of mild displeasure. “What’s next?”

Sam sighed, pulling out his phone to look at a list he had created. “Well, while we’re here, some woman named named Ethel Beavers works on the fourth floor. She knew Newport personally… she might have another angle on the case.”

Cas nodded stiffly. 

“Sure. Whatever.” I was a little occupied with the girls populating the halls.

“Great…” Sam muttered, a little upset that no one was actually listening to him. He guided us toward an elevator, shooing us in like children and waiting for the door to slide closed before looking to the buttons. 

The first thing he noticed was that the number ‘four’ button had a bullet hole in it.

I chuckled a bit. “What?”

Sam narrowed his eyes, carefully pushing the button. It sizzled a bit, not lighting up like it should have but, instead, giving off the scent of an overheated electronic device.

“Yeesh…” I commented.

Cas sniffed the air. “Smells like an electrical fire. Should we be getting out?”

“Eh. We’ve been through worse,” I said with a shrug.

When the doors slid open again, the first thing we saw was blood-stained linoleum. 

“Holy--” Sam jerked back, momentarily fearing the unknown substance. “Uh…”

We watched as a one-legged man limped on a crutch past the doors, smoking a cigarette with one hand and a joint with the other.

Sam coughed, waving away the skunk-like scent of marijuana. 

“Where… are we?” I asked, looking up and down the hall. It was like something out of a horror film-- drained of all color, flickering lights, horrid stenches of bodily fluids and god knows what else.

“Hell,” Cas stated simply.

We looked to him, wondering if he was serious somehow.

“I-I was making a joke. Was that not obvious?” he asked.

I put on a brave face, pushing out into the hall and right into the middle of the crowd. Everyone here seemed to be disgustingly intolerable, doing anything from making out at full volume in line for divorce filings (I mean, what?) to actively vomiting on other people. I’m not kidding, I actually saw three or four people puke on other people in the two minutes it took to walk to Beavers’ office. 

Ethel Beavers… well, she was a piece of work.

Besides looking like your typical bag-of-skin old lady, she was wearing the ugliest, most assaultive sweater I have ever seen. I don’t notice crap like that. But this one was actually giving me a headache; I had to squint to see her face past the sequins. Secondly, every tiny move she made released a huge wave a old-lady perfume that made me want to vomit more than the vomit did.

“Hello,” Sam said politely.

Ethel looked at Sam with instant dislike through her catwoman glasses, her set-in eyes turning her face into a skull. She said nothing.

“Um…” Sam cleared his throat. “I wanted to talk to you about Nick Newport Senior?” 

Ethel kept scowling at Sam.

“I was told you had a personal connection with him?” Sam prompted.

Ethel shrugged, which was quite a task considering her drooping eyebrows. “I’m pretty sure we slept together in High School, but… you know…”

I had to hold in my laughter. 

“Heard he died. Good for him,” she said dismissively, going back to work.

Sam frowned, giving Cas and me a frustrated look. “Well, ma‘am, I’m with the FBI. Here’s my card--” Sam passed over the small piece of cardstock “If you could just--”

Ethel took the card, turning immediately to the phone to begin punching in digits.

“If you know anything…” Sam tried to continue, but Ethel paid him no mind. “Um… what are you doing?”

She didn’t answer.

“Ma’am?” Sam asked.

Still no answer.

Cas looked at us. “I think we should leave. She doesn’t seem to be answering. It’s almost like this one Twilight Zone I saw--”

Sam and I turned to him in unison.

“I’m… sorry, did you just say…” Sam stammered, unable to finish his thought.

Cas squinted at Sam. “Yes. That was very strange…” Cas opened his mouth to say more, but stopped himself. “This is like another Twilight Zone I saw…”

I scoffed. “Since when do you watch ‘The Twilight Zone?’” I asked, chuckling.

Cas turned his squint to me. “Since Metatron.”

I nodded. “Right. The insta-download.”

“But why…” Sam trailed off. He got a little lost, then distracted by his phone going off. He pulled it out of his pocket, walking over to lean against a wall. “Agent Sam Xavier.”

He listened for a moment or two, then grimaced and hung up. He stalked over to Ethel’s desk and snatched the card from her hand. 

“You can’t call this number to try to get a date,” he spat.

Cas and I jogged to catch up with Sam’s angry stalk to the elevator, a blush quickly spreading across his cheeks.

I chuckled. “Dude, what did she say?”

Sam grimaced uncomfortably as the doors slid shut. “It’s rated R.”

I laughed harder. 

Cas just stood there. “I don’t understand. What happened?”

~~~~~

“Well, where we gonna eat tonight, Sammy?” I asked. I was trying to keep an eye out for restaurants or take out places as I drove.

Sam sighed. “Someplace cheap. We blew our money on a second room at the hotel.”

“I apologize. I was just--” Cas tried to cut in from the back.

“Angels gotta sleep too, Sam,” I told him.

“Actually, we--” Cas tried again.

Sam sighed. “How about that place?” he suggested, pointing at a neon sign of what I think was a tomato.

“‘Sue’s Salads?’ God, no…” I chuckled. 

“Someplace with burgers?” Cas suggested softly.

“Ooh! How about here?” I pulled up to a drive-thru, happily rolling down the window.

Sam bent down to look at the sign. “‘Paunchburger?’ Really, Dean?”

I chuckled evilly, pulling up to the order window.

The little speaker popped and hissed and squealed to life, and a kid’s voice came on. “May I take your order?”

You could actually hear the acne.

“Yeah, could I get, uh…” I looked back to Cas, who held up four fingers. “Yeah, six… greasy lard bombs, and one, uh…”

Sam shook his head slowly, laughing internally (I’m sure) at the ridiculous titles on the board.

“Yeah, what do you have in the way of… like, pretend healthy stuff?”

Sam sighed lightly. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye that I’m reasonably sure was a facepalm.

“Uh…” Acne mumbled. I could hear him sifting through papers and silently prayed that they weren’t scripts. I could already hear him stumbling through ‘do you want fries with that? Supersize, sir?’

“We, uh…” he continued, “We don’t… have healthy things…”

I opened my mouth to respond to him, then turned to Sam to talk to him, mouth still hanging open. Sam’s face was stuck between being frustrated, amused and bemused. Somehow. 

Only Sam.

“You don’t…” I muttered. “What about a salad?”

“A what?”

“A salad!” I yelled. “With lettuce and… what, croutons?” I asked Sam.

“A what?” Acne asked one last time.

I growled softly, rolling the window all the way down and sticking my torso out of it. I leaned over to the mic, so that my face was only a few inches from it.

“Dean--” Sam warned. He grabbed my shirt collar, trying to yank me back inside, but it was much too late for that.

“A SALAD!” I screamed.

Acne shrieked and the microphone lost its position on his collar. A loud clatter came over the speaker as it bounced on the tile floor. Or maybe fell into the deep fryer. I guess I’ll never know.

Because an even louder voice than mine started hollering from the car behind us.

“HEY!” it yelled, husky with anger. “If you want salad, go to hell-- I mean Sue’s!”

There was scattered laughter from the other cars. I frowned comically. I couldn’t help but think of the comment in context of past experiences. 

I leaned a little further out of the window, swivelling to face the car behind us, snappy comeback on the tip of my tongue.

“You know, I-- Leslie?” 

“Agent?!” Leslie asked in the same shocked tone. She was hanging out of her window, as well.

Sam twisted in his seat to look out of the back windshield, as did Castiel.

We kind of just stared at each other for a while, each privately thinking of an appropriate remark but coming up empty.

“This is getting awkward…” Cas commented.

Finally, a guy a few cars back started freaking out about being late for work and snapped us out of it.

I pulled the Impala over to one of the parking spaces, as did Leslie.

“Agents, I apologize for my… behavior. I didn’t mean--” Leslie was blathering as she got out of her car.

I sighed a bit, letting her run her mouth until she found time to take a breath. 

“Relax!” I cut in. She stopped immediately. “It’s fine. People have said worse things to me.” I forced a chuckle and a smile.

Sam slammed the opposite car door, leaning over the hood to join the conversation. “It really isn’t a problem, ma’am. I’ve noticed that people around here are a little… hesitant to healthy foods…” he phrased as carefully as possible.

“Yes. People here seem to be wider than most other places we’ve visited,” Cas translated bluntly.

Leslie shuffled her feet. “Fourth…”

“What?” I asked.

“We’re fourth,” Leslie added a word, but it didn’t aid in the meaning.

“Fourth in what?” Sam asked.

“Obesity. In the US. Welcome to Pawnee!” She spread her arms, giggling a bit and smiling wildly.

I chuckled a bit, then sighed. “Well, looks like we’ll be eating elsewhere.”

“Oh! You should go to JJ’s!” Leslie suggested. She was swaying gently back and forth, very excited, apparently.

“JJ’s? That’s, uh…” I pointed off in the distance. “I have no idea where that is.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it! Just follow my car, I’ll show you.” Leslie hopped back in her vehicle. 

“Uh--” I tried to stop her, but Leslie just pulled out, not even waiting for us to follow.

I shrugged, swinging back into the car and starting the engine. Cas and Sam quickly got back inside as I peeled out, following Leslie down the road.

“Why?” Sam asked.

“Why what?” I responded.

“Why are we eating dinner with her? Why are we here? Where even is here?” Sam asked, getting a bit freaked out.

“Wha--”

“I mean, so far we’ve been suspected as the X-Men--”

“We did use their names…” Cas pointed out.

“Fed inedible cookies--”

“They weren’t that bad…” I added.

“Visited hell on Earth--”

Cas chuckled, proud that his joke was still in circulation.

“Been sexted by a hundred-year-old woman--”

“She was only eighty-ish!” I interjected.

“And ordered food from a restaurant that, quote, ‘doesn’t have healthy stuff.’”

“Now, that’s just business sense,” I explained. “And, come on. This is America! Not only that, this is American politics!”

“Yeah! And they’ve got some extreme libertarian working for them? I mean, wha…” Sam trailed off, trying to express his confusion through bizarre facial expressions and gestures.

“I think something is wrong with Sam…” Cas murmured, poking his shoulder tentatively.

Sam whirled about to look at Cas. “I’m fine.”

“You’re very red.”

“Cas, I’m fine.”

“You seem upset…” Cas commented, his head tilting ever so slightly to the right, just like a concerned puppy.

“I am upset! What are we doing here? Why are we in this weird little town?” 

“We talked about this!” I exclaimed. “You know why we’re here! A job!”

“What job?” Sam asked, his voice softer. “I don’t see a job. Where are the monsters? Where’s the weirdness?”

I arched my eyebrows, sneaking a glance at Sam before looking back at the road.

“You know what I mean, Dean,” Sam muttered through clenched teeth.

I sighed. “Not here.”

Sam scoffed. “No kidding! You’ve been all mysterious about this trip. Time to talk to me about it. And Cas!” Sam gestured to the angel hunched in the backseat. “We both got pulled along on this trip with no info.”

I was silent.

“Dean,” Cas spat, “Where is the case?”

I made a small whimper. Once they knew everything about the case, they weren’t going to be happy exactly… and they definitely weren’t going to want to stay.

“Now, you said Nick Newport was murdered. Is that true?” Sam asked calmly.

I sighed. “No. He died in his sleep. Naturally. No foul play or demons or anything…”

“Then why are we here?” Cas asked firmly. His voice had grown deeper and he was leaning forward to talk right into my ear at full volume.

I sighed softly. “He… didn’t… get reaped.”

All we could hear was the soft hum of the engine.

“So he’s in the veil?” Sam asked.

“Yes…”

“Let me guess-- you want us to go get him,” Sam realised.

“I thought that Cas might be able… to…” I trailed off.

Cas sighed. “I can. But why isn’t the reaper doing her job?”

“I don’t know!” I shouted. “I don’t know. We need to find out. I don’t know who it is, either.”

“What does that mean?” Sam asked.

I stuttered a bit, searching for a way to explain this that wouldn’t turn Sam into a screaming rage monster. “Well… so-- look, the thing is… I recently found out that reapers do this thing…”

Sam waited for me to continue, but I said nothing else.

“Dean,” he reminded me.

I sighed. “Turns out that reapers can’t stay in the veil anymore. Since the apocalypse, or almost apocalypse, or whatever… basically, Death tightened up security. Now he’s got little clock-in clock-out stations in the three realms. So that they can’t be kidnapped without logging themselves out of all three realms at once.”

Sam paused.

“So you’re saying they have human counterparts?” Cas asked.

“Wait, are you comparing this to a video game? ‘Log out?’ Really?” Sam asked.

I ignored him. “More like they’re masquerading as humans. But they’re weird, you know? They don’t eat or sleep or act… normal. I thought it’d be easy to find a reaper pretending to be a human, but…”

“But this town is too weird?” Sam suggested.

I made some kind of half-shrug motion. “W-well...”

Leslie’s car turned into parking lot, and I quickly threw on the turn signal and followed her. This town was so small there wasn’t actually anyone behind me to complain. 

JJ’s looked… nice. Actually, it looked like it was trying to be a Biggerson’s and miserably failing. 

Leslie swerved into vacant spot, swinging out of her car with a huge grin on her face. I followed suit beside her.

“This is my favorite restaurant!” Leslie exclaimed excitedly, before I could even turn the engine off.

I chuckled nervously. Leslie seemed… excitable, to say the least.

“Don’t think we’re done with you…” Sam muttered to me.

I sighed and got out of the car. Leslie was practically jumping up and down. 

“Okay! So… should we sit together? I kinda wanna get to know you guys! You seem… interesting!” Leslie asked. She was clearly curious about what we were doing here, and it clearly wasn’t something we were going to be sharing with her. This would be an interesting dinner.

But I couldn’t exactly say no. She was so tiny and… smile-y. It would be like saying no to an excited 6-year-old.

“Sure,” I told her. “I don’t… see…” I could see Sam’s death glare out of the corner of my eye, and felt Cas’ piercing my other shoulder blade. “...why not…”

“Great!” Leslie replied. She didn’t seem to take notice of my tone at all. “Let’s get a seat!”

Leslie marched to the door, pushing it open with the air of a celebrity making a red carpet appearance. Turns out her manner was not far from the truth, as a joyous exclamation floated out of the door, accompanied by the scent of sweet batter and the sound of sizzling bacon.

“Les!” a middle-aged man shouted joyously upon spotting the tiny blonde.

“Hello, JJ!” leslie grinned, swaggering up to the small podium where the man was seating guests.

“Just you today?” JJ asked, checking his board for empty tables and booths.

“Four, actually!” Leslie gestured to us, genuinely happy to have us as guests… or to be here… or maybe she was just happy. She seemed like one of those people who was happy all the time.

“Now, is something going on here that Ben should know about?” JJ asked jokingly. I remembered seeing Ben at the office. They must have been married.

Leslie laughed uproariously, to the point where a few nearby tables stopped eating to stare. Her laugh faded as she ran out of breath, and she forced in a whisper “Don’t even joke, JJ.”

JJ took it in stride, just holding up his hands in a calming gesture. “The usual booth, then?”

“Please!” Leslie affirmed. She was already back to her normal cheeriness.

JJ led the four of us to a shockingly clean booth and handed us menus. Leslie thanked him politely, but set the menu down without even looking.

Sam pointed at the discarded piece of laminated paper. “You… aren’t you going to look?”

Leslie scoffed. “Waffles. Every time. What beats breakfast food?”

“At… 8:30 at night?” I asked.

“Technically, it isn’t breakfast food unless it is eaten before noon…” Cas pointed out. He was sitting next to Leslie in the booth, doing his best to be awkward. He added a little smile. I guess he thought that that somehow helped.

I stuttered a bit, looking an appropriate excuse, but Leslie chuckled. 

“You remind me of my husband. He would definitely say something like that.”

“Ben, you mean?” I asked, glancing up from the menu. “He would... say something awkward and nerdy like that?”

“Well, Ben is awkward and nerdy all the time! It’s his thing,” Leslie told us excitedly.

I snorted a bit trying to stifle a chuckle. “Well, then Cas and Ben have the same ‘thing.’“

Leslie narrowed her eyes. “Cas?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Right there.” I pointed at him.

“I thought his name was Steve…” Leslie trailed off, looking at Cas and sliding a few inches away. 

“That’s… his… Cas is his middle name!” I decided. “It stands for… Cas… tia… mata…” I trailed off, blathering a few more incoherent syllables before Sam stepped in.

“CASSIOPEIA!” he blurted, instantly regretting his decision and putting his head down in shame.

“Is that a… girl’s name?” Leslie asked.

I sighed and tried to find a good excuse to move on.

“What’s going on here?” Leslie asked.

“Well, those two are--” Cas started before he was cut off by my hand. 

“Leaving! The two of us are leaving. And him. Thanks for… trying to take us out…” I stood. Sam lifted his head and I forced him out of the booth ahead of me.

Leslie stuck out her arm, forcing Sam back into his seat. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I don’t think so.”

“It’s-- we’re just--” I kept looking for an excuse while I pushed Sam forward, but Lesie just grabbed his huge hand in her tiny one and held him down.

“You aren’t FBI, are you?” she whispered.

Normally, the question would have been easily shot down, but something about the look in Leslie’s eyes made me pause for only a nanosecond too long. She looked sort of excited about it, curious, and while the stutter caught in my throat gave Cas enough time to blurt “No.”

“I knew it!” she hissed, smacking the table with her fist. She let go of Sam’s hand, and I shoved him out of the booth and onto the floor. Cas realized he had made a mistake, and escaped with him, the three of us bolting for the door.

“Wait!” Leslie tried to get out after us, but we were just too fast for her.

The three of us were nearly out the door when we spotted an odd man standing nearby. He looked like a goth teen who had gotten… stuck that way. He seemed to barely register our existence, but he slid in front of the single exit. Cas took some quicker steps, passing us and getting ready to barrel through the man.

At this point, the weird guy had caused Sam and I to slow down, not wanting to cause a scene, but Cas had taken the position of a football player, ready to plow through the man with his shoulder.

“Hello, Winchesters,” he muttered, which made Cas skid to a stop.

Then the two of us stopped, just staring.

“Oh, and Cas,” he added, his voice staying at one even, almost musical tone.

Then Leslie caught up. “Orin! Quit it!” she scolded.

All five of us were silent.

“Well, uh…” I started, straightening my tie a bit. “We found the reaper!”


	3. The Impala and Leslie's House

Orin stood still, fiddling in slow-motion with his weirdly long, black nails. Even hunched over, he had a large, dark presence in the brightly lit room. 

“That’s right. You found me. But what are you going to do?” he reminded us. There was a sly happiness in his voice, but you’d never know it looking at his face.

“Dean?” Sam elbowed me. “Do you, uh… you have a plan? I hope?”

I was silent, but I snapped at Cas. He knew exactly what I meant without words.

He approached Orin slowly, warming up his angel powers by rubbing his hands together. They started to glow with a white light. Orin backed up a bit, but Cas held his glowing hands up to Orin’s throat.

“Wait,” he said. His tone turned it into a bored drone instead of the urgent cry it should have been. “You don’t want to do that.”

The glow from Cas’ hand softened a bit.

Leslie was standing nearby, screaming internally but looking pretty calm on the outside. Her eyes were bugged out as she stared at Orin with new-found horror. “What the fuck is happening?” she murmured. I don’t think she really expected an answer.

It was pretty weird, to be honest. Orin must have been using some freaky powers to cloak us or something. No one else in the diner was having a reaction to the magical tussle.

“Why not?” Cas growled. He was like a big, mean dog sometimes. He’d get right up next to your neck and make all these gravelly noises as he threatened you. Terrifying.

Orin chuckled, but his face still didn’t move. This was one weird kid. How did no one notice this before us? “You don’t want to know. Just let me go… and I’ll keep everyone intact.”

Cas shook Orin. “Don’t joke around. We know you can’t kill anyone without direct orders.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” I jumped in and held up crossed fingers to Orin’s face. “Me and Death, we’re like this.”

Leslie was going into shock.

Orin chuckled again. “You asked for it.”

For future reference, the words ‘you asked for it’ should never be coming out of anyone’s mouth. Ever. If someone says ‘you asked for it,’ even if you didn’t ask for it, you are in deep shit. Get out of there. Abort mission. Something terrible is going to happen.

Unless the threat comes from Orin, apparently. He actually just disappeared and un-froze the restaurant.

Leslie shook her head a few times, then looked back at where Orin had been standing. Then shook her head a few more times. SHe was stuck in this loop for a good minute or two before she started wobbling around, dizzy.

Cas put a hand on her shoulder to steady her, but didn’t make any move to start explaining.

“Where’d he go?” Sam asked in a panic. He looked around frantically, hoping this was as bad a trick as it seemed.

“Cas?”

Cas looked kind of distracted.

“Hey, Cas!” I snapped a finger in front of his face. He blinked a few times.

“Uh-oh…” he mumbled.

“Uh-oh? Wh-what’s uh-oh?” I asked.

Cas looked down at his hands like they were foreign objects. “He took my grace…”

We were silent. Leslie was trying to catch up, but this wasn’t making any sense to her. “What? What’s grace? What’s happening?”

I sighed deeply and pinched my nose. “It’s-- he’s a… he was an angel, but now he isn’t.”

I think Leslie’s brain was going into overload. “Is this… is this one of those weird prank things? Like, is this all a joke?” She started laughing. “It is, isn’t it? There’s-- there’s a camera in here somewhere, right?”

I narrowed my eyes and watched in relative horror as Leslie wandered about the diner, checking under chairs and on the ceiling for a camera that was recording her.

“Oh, jeez…” I shook my head. “This is bad.”

Cas was panicking, too, just wringing his hands and looking like he was going to cry. 

“Cas, are you okay?” I asked. 

He didn’t respond.

“Cas, listen to me!” I grabbed him by the shoulders. He looked up at me. “We’re gonna find it, okay? Orin’s just some creep teen. Plus… I mean, your grace isn’t just floating around, right? He had to put it somewhere, right?”

“I don’t… I can’t…” Cas was mumbling the beginnings of sentences under his breath. 

Leslie was still looking for cameras.

Sam was on the phone with someone.

“Les!” I shouted. She looked up for a second, but then went right back to searching the room for cameras. Could this get any worse?

“Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God…” I muttered to myself while pressing my palms against either side of my head. “Okay. Cas, where do you think Orin would’ve put your grace? It’s gotta be someone town.”

“Uh…” Cas twiddled his thumbs. “I don’t…”

“You don’t know…” I finished for him. “Sam, would you get off the phone? This is serious.”

He held up a finger, then pointed to the phone and mouthed ‘Bobby.’

“How did you--” I tried to contain my psychotic growls, instead making claws out of my hands and throwing them around. How did he get on the phone so quickly? How long would it take Leslie to get over the angel thing? Why did things always spiral out of control all at once, instead of being courteous and giving us time to fix each issue that came along?

I didn’t know what to deal with first. Cas seemed relatively calm, standing still rather than stomping around throwing a tantrum. To be fair, this was the second time it had happened to him, so he was probably used to it.

Sam was trying to get some answers. I could leave him to do that.

That left Leslie. She was having an all-out panic attack now that she’d checked everywhere for cameras.

Awesome.

“Hey, Les?” I went to her, hauling her to her feet from the place where she had collapsed on the ground in vain. “Les, you wanna go out to the car and talk about this?” I asked as gently as I could, which was still pretty curt and annoyed.

“I don’t… what’s happening?” she asked.

I sighed. “Come on. I’ll take you out to the car, we’ll talk about it there.”

I waved for the other two to follow me out. Sam sat on the trunk, and Cas crawled into the back to curl into a ball and hopefully feel better. I invited Leslie into the passenger seat.

I sighed. “What do you want to know?”

Leslie tried to get control of her voice. “Well… who are you?”

“I’m Dean. That’s Sam and Castiel.” I pointed to each respectively. “We’re hunters.”

“What are hunters?”

“Well, we-- I mean…” I tried to think of the best way to explain this. “We’re like the ghostbusters.”

“So, is Orin a ghost?” she asked.

I chuckled a bit. “No. Orin’s a reaper. He’s one of the guys who escorts you to the afterlife when you die. But, he’s been slacking off. Left that, uh… that Nick Newport guy in the veil, and he started haunting his widowed wife.”

“And Castiel…” Leslie looked into the backseat. “Castiel is an angel? Like… from heaven?”

“Yeah.”

Leslie nodded. “So… is his grace, like, his magic powers?”

“Exactly.”

“And now he’s just a guy? Because Orin took his grace?” Leslie was catching on quick.

I nodded. “Right. But he can’t just throw it out into the universe, it needs a host or it’s like a bomb. And, since Orin only reaps for this town, he can only put it in someone who is in Pawnee right now.”

Sam rapped his knuckle on the window and made us both jump. He mimed rolling it down.

“So, Bobby said that since the kid’s such a smartass, he probably used this as an opportunity to play a prank. Like, since Leslie was there, he probably put it in someone she cares about,” Sam explained. 

Leslie put a hand over her mouth. “Oh, my God! That could be anyone! Ron, Donna, Tom, Ann, Chris, April, Andy, Ben…”

Cas seemed to perk up in the back. “Wait a minute. Who was the man who dressed similarly to me?”

We all looked at each other. “Ben,” I said. “It’s in Ben.”

“Ah!” Leslie shrieked. “Let’s go! Get moving!” She reached over and started the car for me. “Drive! Drive! Ben’s gonna freak if I’m not there!”

Sam scrambled to get into the backseat with Cas, and I pulled out of the parking lot.

Leslie gave me hurried and confusing directions to her place. Apparently she was married to Ben.

It was a nice house, but I didn’t really have time to think about that. Leslie grabbed my arm, and pulled me out of the passenger side of the car. I managed to fumble open the back door as she ran, and Sam and Cas piled out as well. We ran into the house, seeing the damage almost immediately.

It was like some kind of superhero movie. You know, the hero wakes up one day with super powers and accidentally destroys the house with their laser vision or the their shapeshifting or whatever.

First of all, every glass surface in the house had been shattered, probably because Ben screamed bloody murder and it came out angel speech. Secondly, the floor had burn marks on it in a few places. This might have been from his yet uncontrollable teleporting.

Leslie didn’t care about the damage, just ran up the stairs screaming his name as loud as she could. We followed quickly behind her. 

“Ben! Ben!” Leslie repeated her cry over and over until we reached the door to the bathroom. “Open it!” she commanded.

We weren’t sure who that was directed at.

From inside came a high whistling sound, along with the shouted words “Don’t come in!”

“Open it!” she yelled again, this time looking at me.

“Ben, stand back! We’re coming in!” I heard Ben scrambling for cover as I back up a bit and charged at the door. It came easily off its hinges.

There sat Ben, curled up in the tub like a scared puppy.

“Ben!” Leslie ran to him. “Oh, my God! Are you okay?”

Ben moaned a bit. “I think I’m dying!” he screamed, the angel speech covering it again.

Cas shuffled forward. He leaned down, felt for Ben’s adam’s apple, and pinched it. “You have to keep that closed. That way you won’t use angel speech.”

Ben looked so terrified that it was hard to even look him in the eye. “How do you..” he murmured. His voice was back to normal. He started hyperventilating. “H-how did he--” He tried to stand.

“Ben Ben Ben!” Leslie pushed him back down to his sitting position. “Okay, look… you’re gonna find this hard to believe…”

~~~~~

We’d managed to get Ben safely out of the tub and onto his bed. We’d given him a paper bag to breathe into and a blanket to wrap himself in. He seemed to calm down a bit, but I could see in his eyes that our explanation was only making things worse.

“So… wait, can’t we just put it back in Cas? What’s the problem?” he asked.

I sucked in a breath through my teeth. “We, uh… we don’t know how to do that without killing you. So far, Orin is the only person we’ve seen do it without slitting someone’s throat, but we can’t find him without a smoothly-operating angel.”

“Oh, God…” Ben buried his face in his hands. “Oh God, oh God, oh God…”

“I always knew there was something off about Orin… can’t wait to rub this in April’s face!” Leslie laughed triumphantly.

Ben moaned softly into his blanket. “So, what you’re saying is… in order for me to stop being angel, I have to become a really good angel?”

I shrugged. “I mean, that sounds like the downer version, but--”

Sam smacked my shoulder with the back his hand.

“Look,” Sam stepped forward. “Cas is gonna train you. We’ll take you on some hunts in the area, you’ll figure it out in no time.”

“Can Cas solve complex mathematical equations? Because someone needs to take over for me at parks while I’m like this,” Ben reminded us.

“Oh, boy…” I muttered.

“Looks like you two will be training each other, then,” Sam gave Cas a sympathetic look.

Cas shrugged. “I suppose we should start looking for a case, then?”

“Wait, wait, wait. You want me to start killing monsters?” Ben asked, He pulled the blanket slowly up over his mouth. “I can’t kill people!”

“You might have to if you want this grace out of you!” I responded.

Ben whined a bit. He turned to Leslie. “I can’t do this, honey… I can’t--”

“Yes you can, Ben!” Leslie smiled. “You can handle anything! Plus, you’ll have everyone at Parks behind you. All your friends! It’ll be easy as--”

“Whoa, whoa!” I stopped them. “You cannot tell everyone at Parks about this!”

Leslie glared at me and said through gritted teeth. “Of course we can. They are Ben’s source of comfort and support, and they will know about all of this, and they will help him through this extremely difficult and unexpected time in his life.”

I glared back at her, but relented. “Fine. But this does not go past Parks! Just Libertarian, Crazy Guy, Bathroom Guy, Crazy Nail Girl, Murder Girl, and X-Men Guy.”

“And Ann. Ann Perkins,” Leslie pushed.

“Who the hell is Ann?” I asked.

“She’s my best friend in the world and she will be there!” Leslie demanded.

“Fine. And Ann.”

“What about Larry?” Ben asked.

“Is he in Parks?” I asked, my anger rising.

Ben nodded. “Yeah.”

“Then, yes! You can tell the people in Parks, but no one else! How hard is that to understand?!” As you may have noticed, by this point I was so done with the endless bullshit I could barely even think without being angry.

Sam gave me an odd look, somewhere between ‘wow, man, way to go. They’re both freaked out, now’ and ‘please calm down I can actually see smoke rising out of your ears.’

There was a long silence, then Leslie just said “Larry?” Like this guy was such a waste.

Ben made a weird scoffy-chokey noise and shrugged. 

“Great… Sam and I will be on the lookout for a case. We’ll leave Cas here for the night so you can get control of… that…” I motioned toward Ben.

Ben didn’t even stir.

There was suddenly a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry,” Cas said. “I can handle this.”

“Oh, boy… why is it that our lives are either a horror film or a sitcom? Why is there no in between?” I wondered to myself as I left.

Why, indeed...


End file.
